Once Over
by CampionSayn
Summary: All things considering, things were going rather well. At least the old men weren't strangling each other and Shayera hadn't killed Terry's brother. Sequel, TerryxRex.


Title: Once-Over.  
>Summary: All things considering, things were going rather well. At least the old men weren't strangling each other and Shayera hadn't killed Terry's brother. Sequel, TerryxRex.<br>Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, mention of episodes or claim to WB's Batman Beyond or JLU. I make no money from this.  
>Warnings: Slash, mention of slight (tiny, tiny, short, mostly old fashioned) homophobia, crossings of Batman comics and JLU references.<br>Dedication: To **Rose Midnight Moonlight Black **for asking for a sequel to my previous TerryxRex and for various encouragements that forced me to shock myself out of my usual writing habits. This is good in a way, as I have become unintentionally sunk into my old habits like being sunk on a boat in the desert. My gratitude for coming by with a helicopter to hoist my ass up.

I'm also happy to say that this is my 100th story to date and am quite pleased that it is in dedication to a friend!

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><p><em>-:-<br>Thunder and lightning struck again.  
>Soon after, the mattress caught fire…<br>And was thrown out the window onto Washington Street.  
>-Marc Cohen, It Never Happened.<em>

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><p>It is warm and bright in the midday expanse of city and country that Thanagar had become and Shayera tries not to look too much into it as many Thanagarians and Gordanians travel about, with their friends, family, children and all without fear. This is good and she is glad to be back on her old home…<p>

"I can't believe you're on board with this!"

….More or less.

Going back to chugging (yes, chugging was the only thing it could be called as she didn't take sissy girl sips like some country club bimbo) her Zorka berry juice, Shayera hoped her husband didn't notice her rolling her eyes as he practically spit as he yelled at Bruce from across the table. Bruce was as calm as she was, once and a while gulping the tea (yes, Thanagar did have tea, kinda, but it was less refined and tasted like a mix between soy milk and lemon) that the Gordanian waiter had brought him and his son—sitting next to him and grinding his teeth in an effort not to lay a fist into John's gut—and smiling into the cup.

At least two of them could keep perspective. Their fellows on the other hand were ready to tear into each other.

The last hour and a half had been devoted to discussing their children's' newly found relationship that had just recently developed a month and a half ago when they had first visited Thanagar and reported back to the League—Shayera especially; bless Terry for snapping at Rex to find her before anyone else—that the planet that had previously been active in war had been on neutral, peaceful ground ever since she was pregnant with Rex.

Shayera could narrow and sum it up into a simple observation:

Damian didn't give a wit, except for the fact that he kept teasing Rex for being a cradle robber (and threatening Rex with extreme and persistent bodily harm if he broke his baby brother's heart).

Shayera and Bruce didn't really mind as, for one thing, both their sons were happy for the first time in a long time and, for another, their roles in the League were getting exceptionally better and safer with their watching each others' backs. True, they still bickered, but it was nicer and less biting and condescending.

John, for his part, was not taking it well. And Shayera was actually getting almost as annoyed as Damian.

She was glad that her son and Terry had decided to stay at the hotel—probably to have sex, but Shayera did her best not to let those bad, bad images in her head—as she was sure that her son would have gotten fed up with her husband and slugged him—probably breaking his jaw—by now.

"John, why wouldn't I be on board with it?" Bruce asked, voice unbearably level, despite the glint in his eyes that all parties knew meant he wasn't going to take his son and alternate being smeared by his old friend lying down.

"Well, for one thing," John started up again, taking a large bite out of (what he hoped was) some alien meat, "My son is much too old for your son. People might mistake him for McGinnis' father, for God's sake!"

"That would be kinda doubtful," Damian responded, that 'devil may care, but I sure as hell don't' sneer forming upon his slightly chapped lips, "Considering they look nothing alike and Rex has a much higher pedigree. Or, one would think, though I have my doubts as you seem to have gone done a few notches since the beginning of this little luncheon."

"Damian," Bruce warned, trying out some kind of cookie thing that had green things in the middle that resembled raisons, but actually wiggled inside of his mouth.

"Hey, I'm just saying," Damian amended, raising his hands in a surrender motion (though whether it was for the Stewart couple's benefit of his own was difficult to tell), "Lantern here wasn't nearly as unfriendly toward the same-sex game players a few years ago. Now that it's actually in the family, however…"

"I am not homophobic!" John ground out, teeth clenched in a way meant to terrify, but as it did absolutely nothing for Bats of any age, it came up a little short and merely served to fuel Damian's still widening sneer.

"Sure you're not," Damian replied, a sharp edge to his tone this time—it reminded Shayera of Jason Blood a little before Etrigan came out to play.

Before John could either reply with something ugly or launch himself across the table to kill the younger Wayne, Shayera flicked the side of his head (right above his ear and with her pointer, sharp fingernail) and Bruce slapped the back of Damian's skull. Both men's head ended up titling awkwardly.

It was touching for Bruce to see his son defend the baby brother he never really expected or wanted in his own quiet and near feral way, but the elder could only tolerate so much in discussions on same sex orientation, religion, politics or anything else that people fought so recklessly about. And talking about it with people that he had known for years only added to his stress levels—something he did not need in his age.

Rubbing his forehead, Bruce cleared his throat, eyes like water crystals glaring holes into the Lantern radiation enriched green that John possessed; to speak father to father. Man to man wasn't personal enough.

"John, I know that this is a little difficult," he started, glancing for a moment at Shayera, "But we can handle it. They're happy, so what's your problem here? I know that you aren't exactly thrilled about your only son being in a relationship with an eighteen year old boy—"

"It's not about that," Shayera interrupted, gently placing a hand atop John's shoulder, rubbing a little circle around a still very firm bicep.

"Then what?"

John waited a beat, the sounds of other alien species aside from themselves, winged and lizard men and women buzzing around them like some of the wonderful restaurants back on Earth echoing off of the walls to escape through the completely open balcony windows the only thing between them. After a moment, he seemed to sag like a well used scarecrow in Kansas after a freak rainstorm; army posture ruined in a blink.

"It's just…" John started, but stopped, looking to Shayera. She caught the meaning and sighed.

"We just really wanted grandchildren," she shrugged, eyes—green, but not at all like John's—glancing out the window at that moment to notice two familiar figures (one black and so far away he looks like a lark, and one silver and bulked up like a seagull) flying around in loops about some tall buildings, heading in their general direction. She didn't let her gaze linger, she wanted this conversation to be over before Terry and Rex came to see them. She didn't want them to hear something that would skew their impressions of them, even if it was a little selfish.

Damian actually snorted at that, earning him a glare from both father figures. Shayera just raised an eyebrow.

"There are still ways to get some," Damian stated, nonchalant as always, "Supposing that's what _they_want. Just let it pan out on its own. For all we know, they won't even be together that long."

For what it was worth, Shayera pretended not to notice that thoughtful and slightly pleased look that John made at such a thought and Bruce didn't let his face do more than twitch in disapproval.

"So for now," Shayera added on, actually offering the smaller Wayne a light smile that she rarely, if ever, gave to the man, "Let's just let them be themselves. Alright, John?"

The Lantern had noticed at the beginning of Shayera voicing her thought that she had ceased rubbing circles along his bicep and was squeezing it now. Not hard enough to, say, _bruise_, but that could change in a blink if he said, motioned, or thought up anything stupid in retort.

So, instead, he nodded.

And just in the nick of time.

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><p><em>(…fifteen minutes before Shayera started chugging Zorka berry juice and Bruce sipping his tea…)<em>

The heat from the sun was starting to really irritate the lines that made up scar tissue in two lines along his back. It was sort of like pins in needles that happen to the legs, to the arms, to a compressed body, only, it wasn't.

This was followed, in welcome and acceptably, by the slightly smaller body under him—still a little sweaty and so heated from earlier—stirring and pressing further up into him. A brush of lips found his collarbone and Rex growled, but in good—awesome—humor.

"Good afternoon," Terry greeted, one hand trapped under Rex, adjusting to prod the other's belly, earning him an unexpected, and light, chuckle. The darker man also fell to Terry's side, so he was no longer pressing his weight down on him—one of his legs stayed between the Dark Knight's, knee touching both of the other's knees.

"Good after—wait. Noon?"

Terry nodded, a few strands of his (gorgeous, in Rex's opinion, though he'd never actually speak it out loud) midnight black hair falling into his eyes as his head leaned back into the infinitely soft and wonderful bed pillows to look sideways at the strange, alien clock attached to the wall. The clock had to be there, as it was in every room, seeing as these hotels were generally reserved for high standing officials or businessmen.

It took Rex an hour to teach Terry how to tell time on Thanagar, but he's suddenly glad that he had done so and he leaned down to kiss the other, tongue teasing lips, but not asking for entry. They were late enough as it was.

"We have lunch with family today," Rex groaned, getting up from the bed and never minding at all as his naked visage jumped from one area of the room to another to find his underwear and then the rest of his clothes, "And I am going to get reamed by my dad when we get there, I kid you not."

Terry groaned and flipped over under the covers, some of the linen falling from his form to reveal his muscular arms, legs and…damn, Rex was never going to get dressed if Terry didn't put on underwear soon as well.

Picking up a pair of boxers that he knew weren't his (who else but the Bats stitched underwear after coming back from a mission, after all), Rex aimed and hit Terry's head with them. The cloth made a pleasant enough sound on impact thanks to the band in the lining and it made it so that Terry gave an embarrassed sound similar to his brothers.

"Get up, I know you're hungry."

"Yeah, but not for something that looks like a dead sloth pelt that's been left to rot in a river for over a week," Terry replied, right off the bat (and he would kill Rex if the half-Thanagarian ever said anything like that out loud, ever, ever, ever), "I'd much prefer those eggs you cook—ironic as that is."

"Would you rather I tried cooking like my mother? I think I could remember her last try at an actual family recipe if I thought about it really hard."

Terry raised his arms in a surrender motion—Rex got a chill up his spine in that moment for some reason, but ignored it for the light wind coming from the window—and finally got out of bed, underwear slipping easily over his tan legs.

"Whatever. I know that the green spaghetti fungi thing we had yesterday will at least be better than that."

"Ah-hah," Rex crowed from the bathroom, pulling on his pants—the ones that fit comfortably against his every curve—and shouting out, "Number five to add on the Things That We Agree On List!"

"Our families will be so pleased," Terry grinned, snatching his condemns off the side table.


End file.
